Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/209

Rh But Burney has plainly perceived the secret of this Italian music, the principle of its life, its greatness and its death; the Italy of the eighteenth century is all for the present moment; for her there is no longer past or future. She reserves nothing; she is burning herself up.

What a difference between this thriftless Italy and the wise economy of France and Germany at the same period!—Germany slowly and silently amassing her stores of science, of poetry, of artistic genius; France patiently, slowly, parsimoniously setting aside her musical possessions, as the French peasant hoards his cash in the famous woollen stocking!—And so they will find themselves young, vigorous and, as it were, renewed when Italy will be exhausted by her extravagant expenditure of energy.

Blame her who will! Even though the virtues of domestic economy are worthy of all esteem, all my sympathies are for the art that gives itself without counting the cost. It is the charm of this Italian music of the eighteenth century that it spends itself with both hands without recking of the future. No matter if beauty be not lasting: what does matter is that it shall have been as beautiful as possible. Of the fugitive radiance of the beautiful dead centuries a joy and a light remain for ever in the heart.

 II.

a century and a half of great musicians, Germany, about the year 1750, was far from having won, in the musical judgment of Europe, the position that she holds to-day. It is true that those days